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Treasures from the Archives

La Cinémathèque Française: Unique collection of Laterna Magica slides available online

The Cinémathèque Française holds an exceptional collection of 17.000 magic lantern slides from the 18th century to 1920, which archivists of the Cinémathèque as well as several private collectors have assembled since 1936. Two important collections are now available online: the 'Life Models' series containing colourised photographic slides as well as hand painted large scale slides from the Royal Polytechnic Institution.

Since 1936, archivists of the Cinémathèque as well as several private collectors - amongst them Will Day (1873-1936), one of the first film historians -, have assembled this exceptional collection over the years. Today, the stock is still growing, thanks to donations, acquisitions as well as to the funding of la Fondation Electricité de France.
As the fragile glass paintings are likewise difficult to access for researchers as for the broader public, it was decided to first restore and then digitise the material. The digitisation has been supported by the Mission de la recherche et de la technologie du Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication.

Life-Model Slides
The so-called ‘Life Models' evolved from England in 1870. They were photographic slides of local actors performing in front of painted backgrounds, which would then be colourised by hand. Comments and songs would often accompany the presentation of these slides. Mostly, the illustrated stories are dealing with the conditions of the poor, the evils of drunkenness and the comforts of religion.
The most prominent producers of life model slides were James Bamforth in Holmfirth (Yorkshire) and York & Son in London.
The technique applied by them anticipated the style of early cinema: “These remarkable slides immediately preceded cinema as a form of popular entertainment, and employed many of the devices which we are inclined to regard as peculiar to the film, particularly the flash-back and the convincing presentation of fantastic.” (Olive Cook, Movements in two dimensions, 1963).
The “Life Models” disappeared after World War I.

Slides from the Royal Polytechnic
The second important collection of slides now available online originates from the Royal Polytechnic Institution in London. The hand-painted slides constituted a technical and artistic revolution as they were unique in their quality of painting, chromatic variations, and amazing optical effects.
The Royal Polytechnic, founded by George Cayley in 1839, offered educational programmes with regular magic-lantern shows and a gigantic cabinet of thousands of pieces and machines in action. The public got the impression to fully immerge in the geographic explorations of the Victorian period and the Second French Empire.

The slides were projected on 8 meters high screens and quite often four up to six lanterns were used at the same time to create amazing effects like letting one slide fade subtly into another. The lanterns usually were rather large and illuminated by limelight and gas. Later, arc lamps came in use. The Royal Polytechnic was one of the first institutions to claim that “The education of the eye” should be regarded as the most important component in the promotion of science and general education. In fact, the lantern played an important role in this educational trend which reached its peak at the end of the 19th century. In its long- standing company history, a large number of artists worked for the Royal Polytechnic. The most talented among them were without doubt W.R. Hill and Edward H. Doubell, others like Fid Page, Charles Gogin, Isaac Knott, Finden, Frey, Green, Newton, Middleton, Perrin, Clare, Porter, Henry Childe should also not be forgotten.

http://www.laternamagica.fr/

Cinémathèque française, photo Stéphane Dabrowski